Inkjet printers are commonly used both for large scale printing, such as on banners and other signage items, as well as for small scale general consumer printing. Inkjet printers typically include a number of nozzles configured to eject ink onto a print medium or substrate such as paper. The nozzles are part of a print head which is often integrated into an ink cartridge. The ink cartridge also includes a main ink reservoir where ink is stored before it is fed to the nozzles for ejection onto the print medium. Ink cartridges are typically placed onto a movable platform, often referred to as the carriage, which moves the ink cartridges, and thus the print head nozzles, in relation to the print medium.
As indicated, inkjet printers are often used for general everyday printing of various documents. Most of these documents may not require high quality printing. However, consumers also often use inkjet printers to print photos and other images that, in order to fully satisfy the consumer, need a higher printing quality.
Increasing print quality generally means a need for more nozzles on the print head. Thus, a higher quality printing system is generally more expensive due to the higher nozzle count as well as the complexity required in the supporting systems to address and operate the additional nozzles.
Some inkjet printers are designed to print in multiple modes where some modes are for lower quality everyday printing and other modes are for higher quality image printing. However, such printing systems typically still incur the additional costs resulting from the higher nozzle count in order to achieve the higher quality printing sometimes selected.
Throughout the drawings, identical reference numbers designate similar, but not necessarily identical, elements.